Woman Arrested After Begging For Care At Hospital, Then Dies In Jail

It is said that all it takes for the triumph of evil is for "good" men to do nothing. Good? How is a man good if he does nothing to help another human being who is suffering? Dying? Especially if that man has taken an oath to watch over the life and health of  their fellow human beings (doctors), or has sworn to protect their fellow human beings (police). 

Sadly, for Anna Brown, a 29-year-old African American woman left homeless after a tornado in 2010 that destroyed her home, after she lost her job at a sandwich shop, met with the most blatant and callous disregard in her time of need, instead. 

Ms. Brown, 29, had sprained her ankle that week and on September 20, went to Saint Louis University Hospital for treatment. The X-rays were negative and she was given painkillers and discharged. But Ms. Brown was not satisfied, sensing something more was wrong with her. She refused to leave the hospital, so police were called. Hospital security called police, so Ms. Brown, in a wheelchair due to the pain in her legs, rowed herself next door to a children’s hospital. Though doctors there said she did in fact have tenderness in her legs, they said they could not treat her because it was a pediatric hospital. Refusing to return to SLU Hospital, an ambulance took her to SSM St. Mary’s Health Center, a hospital with a mission statement emphasizes “special concern for people who are materially poor and vulnerable.” Ms. Brown was homeless and on Medicaid after a tornado in 2010 destroyed her home and she lost her job at a sandwich shop.

Ms. Brown was given ultrasounds on both legs, which did not find any blood clots or other abnormalities, according to State inspectors who examined her medical records. The hospital gave Ms. Brown the number to several homeless shelters and sent her on her way. But Ms. Brown returned eight hours later, now complaining of leg and abdominal pain. Hospital staff refused to treat her, giving her discharge papers which she refused to sign. Richmond Heights Police, who were already at the scene, wheeled Ms. Brown out of the hospital, as she yelled “my legs don’t work!” At the request of the hospital, police arrested Ms. Brown and charged her with trespassing.

When they arrived at the jail, Ms. Brown told the police she could not put pressure on her legs, so they dragged her out of the car by her arms. Police listed “possible drug use” as their reason for Ms. Brown’s behavior, since hospital staff told them she was “fit for confinement.” Though the woman moaned in pain and begged for help, police dragged her into a jail cell and laid her on the concrete floor, even though a cot was right next to her. Ms. Brown stopped moving and breathing fifteen minutes later. Paramedics tried to revive her without success, so they rushed her back to St. Mary’s, where she died within an hour. The autopsy revealed she died from blood clots in her legs that ultimately lodged in her lungs.

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As Debt Increases, Freedoms Decrease; Hence Our Indentured Sevitude.

John Adams once stated, "There are two ways to enslave a nation. One is by the sword. The other is by debt." And Benjamin Franklin said, "Think what you do when you run in debt; you give to another power over your liberty." And that's where we are. Right where Alexis de Toqueville predicted when he said, "The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money.”

However, having said that, it's not always easy to see the leaves of freedom shriveling and falling to the ground when you are embedded deeply in a forest of debt, especially when that debt serves as the foundation of the economy.  In other words, debt is not a choice, despite all the effort that goes into making each and everyone of us believe that it is.

Right out of the gate, in order to get ahead, most of us must steep ourselves in debt, because without a college education, starting a career is next to impossible. Then, after graduation, it takes anywhere from 10-years to sometimes as much as an entire lifetime to pay this debt off. And, that's just the very beginning of the albatross of debt most people can expect to accumulate over an American lifetime.

The bottom line is that people are slaves to their debt. We're so conditioned into believing debt is as natural as the air we breathe that it's very hard to think of ourselves as indentured servants, but, that's exactly what most of us are.

That's why it's so egregious that President Obama would even consider what White House fiscal commission co-chairs Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson - in favor of brutalizing the middle class while being favorable to the very wealthy - had the nerve to offer as a debt reduction plan:  a proposal that cuts Social Security, in addition to Medicare, Medicaid, and anything else that might possibly offer relief to middle-class America. So, now, every source of retirement income is under siege.   Social Security, personal savings, occupational pensions, including Medicare for retirees,  are potentially up for grabs. Not to mention, Medicaid, that if cut, will leave millions vulnerable to  catastrophic illness costs. In fact, Arizona is already denying organ transplants to people on Medicaid.

Here's the thing. They have no right to touch Social Security. Why?  Well, despite all of the attempts to associate Social Security with the federal budget, it's important to note that Social Security is not part of the federal budget. It is a separate account, a trust, which is funded from our contributions, through payroll taxes. SS has not added one dime to the national debt. The program's payouts have never exceeded revenues, that is, until last year...for the very first time.

Moreover, the  powers that be have plundered SS to fund their destructive agendas for decades. If left alone, the Social Security Trust Fund has a surplus of $2.6 trillion and is expected to remain solvent in its current form until 2037, according to its trustees report.  That's why the tax deal the president struck with Senate Republicans last month that includes a one-year cut in the payroll tax – the source of Social Security's funding – from 6.2% to 4.2% is a little suspicious.  

Only mass outrage can stop the slashing of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and other social programs. Meanwhile, as usual, Wall Street is raking in the profits at our expense, even though they continue to torment the innocent, and continue the same practices that initially caused the economic collapse in the first place.

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Can We Edit Out the Catch-22s From Policy?

What if we, the people were to create a small independent committee who's only job is to edit all policy for catch-22s that render so much of civil administration ineffective for the sole purpose of making sure the immense imbalance between the elite and the people remain in tact? We can call it the Catch-22 Policy Patrol. The committee members will be reformed neocons who are experts in paradoxical, circular reasoning that can make the most absurd "logic" appear rational.

A Real Life Example

Trudy Lieberman, director of the Health and Medical Reporting Program at the Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY wrote a series in the Columbia Journalism Review about the candidate's health plans and how they might affect ordinary people across the nation.

In part II, Lieberman covered the story of a relatively healthy 62-year old father and his sickly 43-year old son. The father works two jobs as the county’s head jailer, and as a grill cook at McDonalds, earning approximately $30,000 per year. His health insurance pays 70% of a bill. He pays the remaining 30%, in addition to paying copays and premiums. He cannot afford to add his 44-year old wife.

His son is a diabetic, who has trouble breathing, talking, walking...he has no job, no money and no insurance. He can't afford medical care, the insulin and the test strips he needs to control his blood sugars. In fact, he can't even afford the transportation it would take to get medical care. Luckily, Abbott Laboratories was willing to give him free strips as long as he applied for Medicaid and was rejected.

"Getting to a doctor regularly, though, is problematic. “I don’t have any money to take him,” says his father. “I’m just broke.” What spare cash he once had, he used to send his youngest daughter to college. Still, he was planning to use eighty dollars from the $570 paycheck he would get the next day to buy test strips for his son to tide him over until Abbott’s supply arrived."

Where is the Catch-22?

Well, Arkansas has a program where you could become eligible for Medicaid (Medicaid for the medically needy program) by spending down. The way it works is after a person accumulates a certain amount in medical bills, he or she may be able to qualify for this program. The catch is he or she must have the money upfront to pay the medical bills in order to accumulate them. If a he or she can't afford transportation, how in the world can he afford to pay doctor bills?

In addition, if you can navigate through all the "catch-22's" involved in qualifying for SSDI, he or she must wait an additional two years for Medicare. At that rate, why not sponsor hunting programs, and hire sharp shooters to thin the "herd" of Medicaid recipients once a year?

Aside from the numerous catch-22s incorporated into our system of health care, and anything and every program designed to help the less fortunate, we are learning that paradoxical laws written with confusing rhetoric designed to trap its victims in no win situations, does not only apply to the poor, but to we, the "average" people as well, which is becoming more apparent every day.

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Estimated Cuts to Medicaid Over Five Years

Federal Medicaid payments to states will be reduced by more than $15 billion over the next five years.

Each state was supposed to submit a state-specific analysis of the impact of each of the regulations. 43 states and the District of Columbia responded, accounting for close to 95% of total Medicaid spending. This report analyzes these responses.

The report finds that the state estimates of the fiscal impacts of the regulatory changes are significantly higher than the $15 billion impact projected by the Administration. According to the states who responded to the Committee, the regulations would reduce federal payments to them by $49.7 billion over the next five years, more than three times the Administration's estimate. In the case of one regulation, the state estimates of lost federal funds are more than ten times the Administration's estimate.

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Why Do Our Welfare Laws Discourage Getting off Public Assistance?

After almost two decades of marriage, a friend of mine, primarily a mother and housewife for the last twenty years, found herself and her children on public assistance after her husband abruptly left one day without notice, immediately filing for divorce. At the time of his departure, she was not employed, mostly due to an undiagnosed medical condition, although she was working part-time in exchange for her children's tuition.

After departing, her husband attempted to strong-arm her, financially, in an attempt to convince her to use his attorney. Against his wishes, she did retain an attorney of her own, with the help of relatives, in order to protect the rights of her children and herself. This infuriated him and he continued to use his financial advantage to punish her as much as possible, disregarding his children's needs.

She discovered she was eligible for Medicaid, as she had no health insurance. A few months later, she found a part-time job with benefits and she gave up the Medicaid even though the cost of her health insurance pretty much consumed her paycheck. Shortly thereafter she lost her job due to medical problems of her own and her children, and she went back to Medicaid.

The obstacle to gaining independence arises when she starts to earn money. At that point, she loses Medicaid, even if the job she gets has no health insurance or does not pay her enough to purchase her own plan. Caught between a rock and a hard place, my friend, along with millions of other people must choose between public assistance and getting a job that potentially could make things even more difficult.

Lisa Hendley is another example that illustrates this dilemma. After spending time in a domestic-violence shelter, Lisa found herself and her daughter a place to live with the help of Housing Stability Plus, a program to aid shelter residents in renting private apartments. She found a job at a grocery store and thought she was on her way to getting off of public assistance.

However, she was told by her city caseworker that she needed to quit her $8-an-hour job, because she made too much income to be eligible for the program's housing aid. Faced with the choice of keeping her job or her apartment, she chose the roof over her family's head, paralyzing her efforts to reach independence.

The point of these stories and millions of others, is that our system blatantly discourages people from working. The system was designed to keep people on the dole or make it almost impossible for millions of people to reach the "American Dream".

Where's the incentive to work when every penny made will finance health care? Where's the incentive to work when every dollar earned by the welfare recipient must be reported to the authority and thus deducted from his pay?

An employed person must incur the cost of being employed...he or she must wear the right clothes, transport himself to and from work, find childcare etc., thus in many situations, it becomes more expensive to be employed in low paying jobs without health insurance or where the company deducts the majority of that person's earnings to pay for insurance than it is to be unemployed.

Why not encourage working by allowing the welfare recipient to keep his welfare check until he no longer needs help? Maybe even match the person's earnings, dollar for dollar, up to a certain level? In other words, why not make it possible for those, who may not be as fortunate, skilled or talented as others are, but truly want to get off welfare, become independent of the system? Wouldn't that be beneficial to taxpayers, our country, the world at large?

Welfare law should be designed to invigorate and restore a person's sense of purpose by emphasizing human initiative, and provide surmountable challenges that will inspire people to discover their own abilities. Instead, the system traps those experiencing financial hardship and becomes the solution rather than a springboard to opportunities for success.

People with enough power and money to influence legislation are intelligent enough to figure out that human beings, by nature, will not seek employment when the alternative, unemployment, is less costly. Therefore one can only assume welfare legislation is a deliberate attempt to keep a certain percentage of people dependent on the system.

But why would a supposedly free nation like ours keep a good portion of our population dependent on welfare, the very thing most of the politically powerful claim to despise? These same people love to evangelize on and on about personal responsibility? There is something wrong here.

I can only think of two reasons why this is so. The first one, is no matter what Jesus says, being poor in this country is a sin, and therefore must be punished. The second reason is a certain percentage of the population must be disempowered in order for the very few at the top to remain in power.

If anyone has any other reasons or disagrees with me, please let me know.

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Our Decisions Regarding Health Care Could Result in a New Enlightenment Age or the Beginning of the End

Our current health care system is weakening and tearing apart the strands that hold together the fabric of our society more and more every day. Since 2000, employment-based health insurance premiums have increased 87%, rising four times faster than wages. Our out of pocket expenses, co-pays, deductibles etc, have increased 115% and the average employee contribution to company-provided health insurance has increased more than 143%.

The hospitals, insurance companies, and the government health care system are all driven by "economies of scale" thinking which base its decisions, not on what is best for the patient, rather decisions are based on what will result in enormous profits for the industries involved.

There is no safety net. Medicaid only covers a small fraction of people without health insurance. The eligibility rules vary widely state to state, and most states require people to be completely destitute parents to qualify. In some states working adults without children can get Medicaid coverage for themselves but only if they make less than, let's say 30-40% of the federal poverty level, or in other words, $3-4,000/year. Medicaid eligibility discourages people from working because most programs only allow people to earn a salary below the poverty level in order to qualify. Where is the incentive to work more hours or find better employment?

The bottom line is that it's next to impossible to secure health benefits for the average American today unless their employer offers it, and even then it's becoming prohibitively expensive. If we allow the health of American citizens to deteriorate in the most affluent country on earth, not only does it place a great burden on our labor force, infrastructure, and market system, it calls into question how civilized "We the People" really are. Ignoring the needs of the sick so that big industry can profit is heartless, insensitive, greedy and self-serving and much more characteristic of a barbaric society than the enlightened, continually evolving nation we claim to be.

We cannot continue to allow billions of our tax dollars to fund what is ultimately destructive to the public interest, and at the same time, refuse citizens who work hard, pay taxes, and play by the rules, decent health care. If we permit American citizens to fall into economic hardship because of health care costs, we are no different than the many"civilizations" that have gone before us, failing because of their inability to transcend the selfish, power hungry part of human nature.

"A chain is only as strong as its weakest link”, is a common metaphor often applied to groups of people from small organizations to -- in an era of global economies and growing interdependence -- the world at large. However, although this statement is true as far as a chain and a broken link, fortunately, this analogy is only partially true when applied to society or government, because one broken link will not render society or government useless. The reality is the strength of the other links will normally compensate for the broken one and society will continue to function. "Fabric is only as strong as its weakest threads" might be more accurate when referring to how groups of people function. A broken health care system, if not mended soon, will inevitably unravel the societal fabric weaving us all together.

We are at a crucial crossroads in American history and our decisions regarding the value we place on the quality of human life could either result in a "New Enlightenment" age or signal the beginning of the end of what was a very noble experiment in democracy.

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